9:09 p.m.: Casino ready to go Indiana Live!
By Scott L. Miley
The casino was built in 113 days and is inside a temporary, inflatable-looking structure usually reserved for indoor soccer or ice hockey.
In fact, there is a puck in the facility. Wolfgang Puck. The popular chef has a prominent deli-style restaurant, Cafe Live!, at one end of the casino, open 24 hours a day.
The permanent casino is under construction next to the horse race track and is to be a 233,000 square feet, twice the size of Hoosier Park. The permanent casino is set to open this spring.
Indiana Downs has put nearly $250 million including construction and payroll into the facilities — again more than twice the more than $100 million Hoosier Park spent renovating its horse racing facility and adding a casino.
Friday’s test run was held to satisfy the Indiana Gaming Commission, which had staffers watching the operation to see how Indiana Live! monitored.
“We’ll be meeting with them in the next two days to determine how well they are able to perform, and if they pass as well as Anderson did, they’ll get the green light,” said Ernest Yelton, executive director of the Indiana Gaming Commission.
Unlike Hoosier Park, there are no electronic gaming tables, where multiple customers can play against a dealer, at Indiana Live!
Recently some northeast Indiana legislators said they did not know that the gaming tables were considered slot machines under Indiana law. Yelton clarified that gaming tables were not excluded from the legislation that allowed land-based casinos and those tables are permitted at Hoosier Park and Indiana Live!
Of Hoosier Park, he noted that some of the machines — particularly an electronic gaming table — are not yet in operation but said they should be soon.
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Casino: Hoosier Park or Indiana Live!
Hoosier Park Racing & Casino
Location: 4500 Dan Patch Circle, Anderson; near exit 26 from the I-65 interchange at Scatterfield.
Owner: Centaur Gaming
Currently open 24 hours a day, 365 days a week.